The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the inventors hereof, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, is neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
A cellular network is any mobile communications network with a series of overlapping hexagonal cells in a honeycomb pattern. Mobile devices in a cellular network often need to access their position data on a real-time basis in order to support the location-based services and applications implemented on these devices. Conventionally, the current position of the mobile devices can be determined with a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), such as a Global Positioning System (GPS) chipset. The mobile devices would query the navigation service, either at regular intervals or when the devices have been moved, to request updated position data.
However, this arrangement places considerable burden on the system resources of the mobile devices. Constant and regular queries to the navigation service are expensive operations (in terms of power and communication bandwidth consumption) to carry out over a prolonged period of time. Similarly, sending a query to the navigation service whenever the mobile devices are moved (e.g., as detected by an on-board accelerometer) could result in unnecessary queries, especially if the mobile devices are simply oscillating about the same location.